


Messing About On The River

by Lana_Morrigan



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Have Their Picnic (Good Omens), Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Confessions, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), Ducklings - Freeform, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Picnics, Quote: We're On Our Own Side (Good Omens), how to summon a hell duck, possibly, punting on the river Cam, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:54:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26382949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lana_Morrigan/pseuds/Lana_Morrigan
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley picnic beneath the dreaming spires of Cambridge, and then decide to enjoy the afternoon punting on the river Cam. What could possibly interrupt such serenity?I'm so glad you asked...Aziraphale sat up to cast a quizzical eye over the river. “Crowley?”“Nngh,” he admitted.“Are we being pursued by a duck?”“...No?” he hoped.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was authored in collaboration with the estimable DT, whose Aziraphale is always just the right amount of bastard.
> 
> This is 10% arguing about philosophy and ineffability, 30% about one small water fowl, 20% about Crowley freaking out dramatically, and 40% fluff and foolishness.

Aziraphale lounged back in the punt.

In a less proper being, the word ‘languid’ might even be applied, but the phrase took one look at the reclining Angel and decided that it had business elsewhere. Said Angel was feeling content. To be fair, being in a State of Grace, that was the usual status for Aziraphale on those occasions when the world was not about to end, Michael was not auditing his latest performance reports or Crowley was not being, well, Crowley. There was something about leaning back on a punt in the sun with a glass of chilled Chateau d'Yquem (1811 of course) which particularly appealed to his serene nature.

Although it would not be something that he would care to admit (as hard work is of course its own reward,) this serenity was enhanced by the fact that it was not him who had been polling the punt and engaging in a sotto voce stream of curses damning punts, poles, unfortunate ducks and both the general and more specific laws of physics. Aziraphale’s serenity was not even slightly marred by the fact that his companion had rather given up on this ‘physical effort’ nonsense, and a stream of unlikely currents were now gently propelling the boat, with Crowley occasionally remembering to wave the pole roughly in the direction of the water lest Anyone who Cared was watching…

That last thought did cause the faintest of shadows to cross his mind and furrow his forehead. He opened his eyes and glanced around in case there were busy ears being unnecessarily inquisitive but, unless Gabriel had taken the form of a rather disapproving swan, the riverbank was merely populated by the usual flotsam and jetsam of a Wednesday afternoon on the Cam. A quiet snort resulted from his thought of Gabriel trying on a waterfowl disguise. “Oh yes,” he murmured, quite taken with his imagining. “Here I am in my perfect swanness, let me break your arm to show that I am a perfectly normal swan…” He gave a louder rather un-angelic snort as he tried to stifle a giggle. “Oh! Oh no, dear, I was not laughing at you,” he amended hastily.

It is amazing how the glowering attitude of a hot and flustered Demon can make anything they are holding, even a now multiply damned and cursed yet previously unblemished quant (he was pleased to remember the proper name for it,) appear an exceedingly dangerous weapon.

“I was just musing - because of course one does not _question_ \- why it is that if She wants people to be good, the Virtues are the dullest of the options? Why is there no instant gratification in, for instance, _not_ taking that extra slice of cake, or even in cleaning one’s house?”

Crowley had rather been lost in his own train of thought in the quietude preceding Aziraphale’s question. It had in fact - because he was a Being of enough Willpower and Imagination to manage it, thank you very much - been two trains of thought running in parallel. The first had been a feeling that he couldn’t name but was in fact something approaching serenity: he was alone with his angel in the sunshine on a secluded stretch of the river Cam. They’d had a picnic. There had been a decent amount of wine drunk and, since the bottle knew better than to ever entirely empty itself, Crowley had the happy expectation of there being several more glasses to come later. The other thought was less a thought in itself and more a litany of invectives interspersed with the plaintive and repetitive demands of whose idea it had first been to ever decide to row a boat with a blessed _stick,_ because Crowley had a lot of feedback to offer on this particular piece of Human Ingenuity and supposed brilliance - and none of it was positive.

The Angel’s question derailed both these trains of thought in the Demon’s head, killing everyone instantly and almost causing him to lose the quant. It wasn’t a Hellish Intervention, more his inherent snakey-ness that allowed him to ram the stick into the mud and then somehow wrench it out again whilst leaning at a disastrously improbable angle over the stern of the punt. For a moment it seemed as if gravity would take its course, but with a snarl Crowley managed to bring both the quant and his body back in line and so not sacrifice either of them to the water. He pushed his sunglasses further up his nose; they’d slipped askew when the stupid stick had insisted on trying to wrench out of his grasp. “Sorry, what was that, angel?”

“Virtues, dear boy. I was wondering why She created them without the immediate gratification that seems so inherent in Vice.”

“No,” Crowley shook his head. “You were saying stuff about cleaning your house.”

Aziraphale resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. “That was an example. Why is it that after toiling to clean one’s house, one doesn’t feel a euphoric rush? There is something to be said for the satisfaction of a job well done, of course, but I rather think that has more to do with the relief of no longer labouring at a task, rather than the task itself. Do you follow?”

Crowley’s sunglasses looked over to the right side of the bank and his long nose scrunched in consideration. At length he said, “But you’ve _never_ cleaned your house.”

The temptation to roll his eyes returned and he succumbed to it. “Hardly the point…” He waved the hand not currently occupied with his wine. “You yourself don’t take any pleasure in hard work…”

“I do!”

“...aptly illustrated by the fact that I would say the punt and the Cam are more responsible for propelling us forward than you are.”

Crowley threw his arms up dramatically - almost lost the quant - before remembering the stupid stick he was meant to be holding on to. “That’s how boats work!” he countered, sounding almost wounded. “Only an idiot doesn’t know how boats work, angel. Anyway, I’ve worked on loads of projects - loads and loads - they stopped me getting bored.”

Aziraphale squinted up at Crowley; the late summer sunlight was catching in the red of his hair making it blaze like a halo. He quirked an eyebrow in enquiry. “Projects?”

The Demon’s shoulders did something very liquid and his head dipped as one desperate neuron at the back of his skull tried to warn him to shut up. He ignored it. “Yeah, y’know, projects. Wiles an’ stuff. Spreading foment.”

“Ah, the destruction of the innocent.” It was an old accusation long since worn out and disproven, but Aziraphale still wielded it and the Demon reacted just as predictably.

“Yeah the - _what?!_ No! No - the - not the _innocent,”_ he hissed. “Well,” he added, “I mean, alright, the innocent, but not _just_ the innocent. Everybody. Anybody in range frankly…” he trailed off before realising he’d attacked the wrong end of the accusation. “And not destruction - just… annoyance.”

“You furthered Hell’s dark purpose by annoying people?”

“Mm, yeah.” Crowley made an effort to pay attention to the quant and at least look like he might be directing the course of the punt by actual exertion and the Universal Laws of Physics as opposed to Whim. “It’s a choice, isn’t it? To be kind. Well, when people are annoyed, they’ve still got that choice, it’s just harder to make the right decision.”

The Angel made the smallest moue of displeasure. “That seems rather underhand…”

“You were the one who told me to do it!”

He sat up, scandalized, almost spilling his wine. “I most certainly did not!”

Crowley let the quant trail in the river so he could lean down to reclaim his own glass, drain it and return it to a precarious spot by his boots. “Well, alright," he admitted, hauling the quant out again and daring it to drip on his clothes. "You didn’t _tell_ me exactly, but it was your idea.”

Aziraphale swallowed his indignation and took a moment to reflect. Most Demons delighted in spreading misery and chaos, fear and hate; but Crowley had never in six millennia been anything like most Demons. “Annoying Humanity was an idea I gave you?” he tested cautiously.

“Yeah. You said something about people didn’t have the chance to become really holy unless they had the option of being bastards instead.”

He didn’t imagine he’d phrased it in _that_ parlance, but he sipped his wine and let it slide.

“I said it would only work as a test on a level playing-field. _You_ said the more in the shit they were - y’know, Humanity - the more opportunities they had to be good. So, I… I thought alright, I’ll give them opportunities.”

Aziraphale had forgotten that conversation, filed it on an out-of-the-way bookshelf at the back of his mind. He recalled how affronted by the whole unfairness of the set-up Crowley had been. How he’d called it ‘lunatic’ along with quite a few other less complimentary words. He remembered his own answer too. _“No, it’s ineffable…”_ The Angel raised an eyebrow. Crowley was clearly in the mood to blame everyone else for his own doings, not an entirely new occurrence. “So,” he paused to admire the verdant riverbank and the gothic sugar-spun architecture of the colleges beyond the fields. “These _wiles_ that you were so reluctantly forced into doing... From what I remember none of them really seemed to involve any real effort, per se. After all, you keep commenting that people do all the bad stuff, you merely have to give them the gentlest nudge and the rest tumbles down like a row of dominoes. Besides, it is hardly _actual_ work if you are doing it to avoid being bored. It sounds more like a, well, a pastime or hobby. Some people do macramé or play sports. You _agitate_.” The smile smoothed any sharp edges from his words.

Crowley’s eyes did something behind his glasses that Aziraphale couldn’t see. He held himself oddly taught, which should have got him yanked off the end of the punt but didn’t because the punt didn’t fancy being boiled in liquid Hellfire and sunk into the Cam.

The trouble with being a Demon - especially one like Crowley - was that one acquired a broader mindset. By definition, a Fallen Angel had experienced things that even the most exulted of Her Host could not possibly know. (The Fall being a case in point; such a small word for such a large experience.)

Crowley glared at the stupid stick and tried not to wince, tried to remember the picnic and the wine and the way the sunlight had touched Aziraphale’s hair, as if the curls had been gilded with starlight and butter. He’s had these thoughts for… centuries? Millennia more likely - he’s used to them. Used to the sharp feeling every time he recalls them as if someone’s cast pins or nails into his chest... Well. It made breathing interesting at least; especially in moments like this.

He rather wanted to retort that he'd put just as much ingenuity into the Angel's miracles he'd covered as part of the Arrangement - certainly more imagination than Aziraphale ever had. Only his daily common-sense quota warned him that would be a Bad Idea, so he chose a different point of contention. “Forced into?” he demanded sharply. “So, you went about your daily tasks with a spring in your step, did you? All those Archangels telling you what to do? Gabriel breathing down your neck? Sandalphon lurking at your back? What about Uriel? Or Michael?” He paused to over-dramatically sneer, but the sound of discontent was not as damning as he might have wished. “We both had terrible jobs, angel, which we both bloody hated…”

“Dear boy that’s not…” Aziraphale had, through the years, come to understand a correct give and take; a certain amount of teasing, alright, maybe bullying - _ragging_ \- that was acceptable to them both. Crowley’s behaviour currently if anything seemed to show a rejection of that and Aziraphale felt the smallest flicker of unease in his stomach, which he soothed by stroking his waistcoat smooth, adjusting his bowtie and then straightening his jacket.

Crowley gave him an odd, sideways look, the words hard to find.

Aziraphale could be a bit of a bastard, that was true, it’s one of the qualities Crowley liked about him. (Sandalphon was a right bastard and Gabriel’s an utter dick, which is why he didn’t like them at all.) It’s just sometimes… sometimes he’d like to hear Aziraphale say it. That despite all the bickering and the back and forth, that the Angel believes in him - in _them_. The Universe is all a bit of a balls-up frankly, and when all is said and done, they’re on Their Side. That wouldn't be too much of an admission, would it? But Crowley’s asked questions before and that got him face-first in a pool of boiling sulphur; his hair and wings alight in vivid blue flames... He’s since learnt to be more circumspect with his curiosity. He wasn’t really sure why he was arguing; something in Aziraphale’s attitude needled; it made him want to push back. He never had been very good at taking instruction or listening to others' opinions of his deeds and character. It made him tense. He was tense now.

“Plague of rats,” he growled. And then without pausing he somehow created a fulcrum between him, the quant and the punt so that he could lever himself down and up again having stolen the Angel’s wine glass. He drained it in one go and dropped it casually behind him in the Cam.

“Crowley!”

The scolding made him flinch and on instinct manifest a Demonic Intervention, as some part of his brain believed his angel was upset over the glass, or possibly the act of littering. There was a muted ‘pop’ of air as a sinking wineglass became a small duckling with unusual plumage who bobbed to the surface, confused and furious. It voiced accusatory ‘peep!’ noises at the Demon, paddling after the punt for all its tiny webbed feet were worth. Crowley stared mutely at it, trying to remember how to close his jaw.

Aziraphale sat up to cast a quizzical eye over the river. He had meant to ask about the rat army, but that could wait. “Crowley?”

“Nngh,” he admitted.

“Are we being pursued by a duck?”

“...No?” he hoped.

“Dear me, and I didn’t bring any frozen peas,” Aziraphale lamented.

“It - it’s a _duck!_ It lives on a river! Frozen peas aren’t it’s natural _thing_ \- prey? - _food!”_

Aziraphale gave him a look that was trying its hardest not to be disappointed.

Crowley didn’t know how he came to exist in a world where he was using a long pole with a stupid name to half flick and half fish a small and very vocal water fowl out of its usual habitat and onto a punt. _“I bet Evelyn Waugh never had to put up with this shit…”_

“Of course not dear boy, he went to Oxford,” the Angel countered vaguely, as he Miracled a handful of fresh garden peas to feed their new guest. The duckling ceased pecking belligerently at Crowley’s boots and waddled uncertainly down the punt to investigate what was being offered to it. Aziraphale looked from the duck to Crowley, a soft smile on his face. "The question which is gently meandering across my mind, slightly behind the pressing question of whether there is any more of the Chateau d'Yquem immediately available, is where this specimen of Anas Platyrhynchos came from?"

“Ducks come from rivers, angel,” he offered brightly with a grin. There was a pause as they both contemplated the avian interloper, who had clearly decided that, despite Crowley's determined expostulations, peas definitely were its natural prey.

Not certain what else to do, Crowley absently waved his hand, still staring at the duckling. The wine bottle found itself full once more and now keeping company with two elegant cut-crystal Victorian glasses. He was mildly embarrassed and loathe to admit aloud that he’d somehow forced a discarded wineglass to reincarnate into a duck. For Someone’s sake! He hadn’t done it on purpose, he’d just turned the glass into something - anything - that was a more appropriate thing to find in a river. He’d been expecting some sort of fish, or perhaps a stone, or a particularly virulent strain of Weil’s disease... He had not expected a bloody duckling. A duckling! Honestly, it wasn’t very Demonic, even with all that golden-red and russet plumage. (Although he secretly suspected that had more to do with the final drops of wine staining the glass than any Infernal colour scheme.) The whole thing was ridiculous, frankly, and here his angel was, feeding it peas. It was enough to make a Demon discorporate on the spot… 

Wine!

Wine was always the answer.

Crowley abandoned the quant, trying to recall the rules for ships verses rowboats and stupid shallow-bellied crafts. If a boat didn’t really have a hull or a spine, could it be said to have a fore and aft? The quant - being unencumbered by the vagaries of such nautical terminology, yet sensibly filled with foreboding - elected to stick to the punt once Crowley had dropped it, to lie half in, and half out of the water, quivering with a foreshadowing of its own demise.

The Demon stalked towards the bow; Aziraphale watched, his expression between marvel and… and… and all the other entirely correct Angelic feelings when observing a particular and thin-hipped Demon trying to traverse a boat - obviously. 

Crowley fell to one knee with such liquid elegance the punt barely made ripples. He glared at the duckling as he reached forth to claim the wine bottle and one of the glasses. As he started to pour, the small aquatic explosion of attitude and feather-down peeped at him loudly, pecking at his hand and almost causing him to spill wine over the idiotic collection of planks claiming to be a boat. He sheltered the bottle with his other hand, then lost patience and grabbed the duckling, stuffing it into his inner jacket pocket.

“Crowley!” the Angel chided.

He finished pouring their drinks, re-corked the bottle, and offered the Angel his glass before demanding, “What?”

Aziraphale’s eyebrows and head dipped in an expression that was meant to be somehow shaming but managed to be encouraging at the same time. “You - you stuffed a baby duck into your pocket!”

Crowley scowled; he’d lost count of the number of doves he'd revived from Aziraphale’s sleeves since the Angel ‘learnt’ legerdemain in the 1800s. “Tell the whole world why don’t you,” he lamented. And then in a hiss, “Yess, I’ve got a fucking duck in my pocket - look!” He lunged forward and pulled at the opening of his left-hand jacket pocket, angling awkwardly towards the Angel’s gaze. His right hand meanwhile held on to his wine glass; he drank from it with a very bad approximation of insouciance.

One could not be cast out of Hell: by definition, Hell was where one landed having been cast out of the rest of Creation. But that didn’t mean one couldn’t garner Hell’s bad opinion. Crowley had been dancing around Hell’s bad opinion for centuries as he concocted elaborate schemes to vex Humanity whilst filing reports that demanded a gold star for every war, violation, or crime that occurred wherever Hell had last stationed him - and even places Hell hadn’t. The entire charade was fucking exhausting, if one was honest (which he tried not to be, because, well, _Demon…_ ) And worst of all was he couldn’t even talk about it, not even to his angel, not really; any time he tried Aziraphale always seemed to get the wrong end of the quant. The Arrangement was the closest they’d got, and that had taken millennia in itself to be agreed upon, let alone acknowledged… 

Crowley’s thoughts and corporation stilled as Aziraphale clasped his shoulder, moved his palm against his chest to manipulate his jacket, then peered first into his pocket -

“Oh!”

\- followed by straight into his sunglasses and the slightest hint of amber eyes behind them. The Demon managed not to flinch and ended up shuddering instead, his brows still knifing down, unwilling to allow his eyes to look up. This was it, Crowley knew: he was straight up gonna get Smote by a member of the Host for having a fucking duck in his pocket. It was so bloody absurd he didn’t know why he didn’t see it coming...

“...It’s _sleeping_ ,” Aziraphale observed, his tone ridiculously tender.

At that moment Crowley wasn’t certain how much he’d pay to be unconscious too, but he’s sure he could afford it and was miffed no one had come forward to make the deal and offer the bill. Because honestly - buggery _bollocks_... How did what ought to have been a perfectly ordinary picnic end up with Aziraphale’s fingers far too close to his chest, questing after a small duck? Someone help him, did this happen to anyone else in Creation other than him? It _really_ was unfair... He shook himself out of - of - of whatever that was. “Look, just - just have it!” he announced, pulling wide the left side of his jacket to expose the waterfowl, still curled, downy-small and brightly plumaged in his pocket.

The Angel looked scandalised. “Close your coat this instant!”

“W-what?”

“Small creatures require _warmth…_ ”

“It lives in a bloody river!”

“Even so. It’s _nesting._ You have a duty of care,” the Angel murmured as he arranged Crowley’s arm and jacket across his torso to support and shelter one very tiny duck.

“I’m - but I’m meant to be wielding the stupid stick,” Crowley tried to argue.

“You managed perfectly well before,” Aziraphale countered, bastard that he was.

Crowley made a sound that might have been “Nnghh?” And then with vehemence, “This is not _my_ duck! Why do I have a duck?!”

Aziraphale took a measured sip from his wine and treated Crowley to a long look: his eyes the sort of blue of a sky that was going to do whatever it wanted because it was the Firmament and there was no one around to stop it. “My dear,” the Angel said with infuriating calmness, “It _is_ in your pocket…” He could feel the strained, mega-watt glare from behind Crowley’s sunglasses boring into him, and he had a sense that he may have pushed a touch too far. But he also knew that the very worst thing that Crowley would ever do to the duckling was turn it back into a wineglass - assuming he could - and he wouldn’t even do that, because if he was going to do so he would have already.

“What am I meant to be doing now?” Crowley lamented, casting confused looks between the quant, the wine, his angel, and his breast pocket.

“You managed very well before,” Aziraphale reiterated.

“You told me off before!” Crowley countered heatedly.

“Shush!” The Angel lifted a finger sternly to his lips, glowering at Crowley’s pocket. 

“No - no - that’s it,” the Demon responded, sounding surprisingly free. “ _You_ have it!” He struggled to take off his duckling-laden coat whilst sitting on a punt, and making it appear an easy, elegant undertaking.

“It’s imprinted!”

There was sudden and significant silence. _“Wot?”_

Aziraphale’s hands made a small, fluttery motion. “Chicks and such like. It’s not necessarily true to say they imprint upon the one they first see. It’s more the one they receive warmth or food from…” 

“No - nope - I’m not - no, I’m just gonna fling it into the Cam… Or should that be yeet?”

“NO!”

‘That _is_ the terminology I’ll have you know!’ he meant to retort, but stopped, perfectly freeze-framed holding up a very expensively tailored jacket full of duckling out and over the side of the punt. “Nnng,” he managed, wobbling. 

_“Crowley,”_ the Angel said quietly.

Crowley would submit to an eternity of torture rather than admit what that tone of voice did to his brain. _Fuck fuck fuck_. “Er… here?” He offered his jacket and the nesting duck over to Aziraphale. “Wings - Angels - ducks?” he muttered helplessly. “Your - your thing, angel…”


	2. Chapter 2

The reluctant tug of war might have continued indefinitely, had it not been for the duckling falling out of the overly waved back-and-forth suit pocket and deciding to flutter-waddle up onto Crowley's knee. The Demon flung himself backwards in shock, dropping his jacket and sprawling awkwardly on his back. The duckling, pleased with its conquest, continued up his thigh, across his belt and stomach to purposefully curl up upon Crowley’s narrow sternum. The Demon raised his head to stare at the Angel in an accusatory manner as if he had been shot. “Why do I still have a bloody duckling?!”

Azirapale swallowed down his first response and instead Miracled another handful of fresh peas. “Well, as I said, he seems to have imprinted upon you.”

"You're the one who keeps summoning peas to feed it,” Crowley complained in a surprisingly mild and infinitely confused tone. “And anyway, what - what am I gonna do with a _duck?"_ Cradling his new companion against him with one hand he sat up and began the awkward operation of retrieving and re-donning his jacket, a feat which was only achieved by doing something unsettlingly serpentine with his shoulders. 

"Oh, nurture it, feed it, raise it, just the usual things…" Aziraphale's eyes definitely had a twinkle to them. He refilled both their glasses and then contemplated the small avian more closely whilst sipping on his wine. "Actually, none of this answers the question as to where the charming little duckling came from and, perhaps more interestingly, why it’s here?"

“Wait - the what?” He grabbed his wine with his free hand having a feeling he was going to need it.

He steepled his fingers. "I suspect, my dear boy, that in your alcoholically enhanced state you believe that you may have Created the creature, possibly out of the wineglass that you had rather regrettably _accidentally_ dropped into the river, in what I choose to believe was a true act of contrition for your failing."

Crowley's expression narrowed as he looked into the guileless eyes of his companion but even he could not break the mask of innocence that cloaked the Angel's words. He took a gulp of wine. “Er…” the Demon offered helplessly.

Perhaps the vicinity of those ivory towers of learning that gazed down at the Cam had rubbed off on Aziraphale, but his voice developed much of the tone of an aged and tenured lecturer, ensconced and protected from Reality by the comforting blanket of Academia. "However, the Creation of life outside of certain messy biological functions is rather specifically reserved to Herself and I do not think that I am giving away any trade secrets to reveal that such activities feature somewhere on the 'To Be Smitten' list. It is perhaps fortunate for a number of medical researchers that I keep said list locked deep in the back-room of my abode in Soho."

Crowley’s head tipped to the side and then back, not entirely in understanding.

Another sip of wine and Aziraphale continued, "So, unless I am mistaken, this means that your new companion was Summoned by you, to fulfil some need or desire, perhaps unspoken but nonetheless real. The next question is from where? Is it the world's smallest and cutest Demon or has it been called from elsewhere to this Mortal Realm? Either way, it rather seems that you are, my dear boy, responsible for the creature."

Crowley gave him a very long look. “You - you think I wanted a _duck?”_ A rogue neuron at the back of his brain with no sense of self-preservation started muttering about that being only one letter off, before the rest of Crowley’s brain stabbed it.

Aziraphale drank a little more wine and pointedly said nothing.

“Wait - hang on,” Crowley gestured with his glass before taking another swig of perfectly chilled wine. “I helped build stars. The act of Creation is not solely reserved for Her, She delegates - as well you know! I could Create a duck if I wanted to!" Realising what he'd just said and what the Angel had said about Smiting, he back peddled swiftly. "Also, this wasn’t _Creation_ per sa, this was… a… er… transference? Y'know, a - a transformation!”

The Angel frowned. “Weasel words, dear boy…”

“They are not!” Crowley denied hotly, draining his wine and putting his glass down with a little more force than was required. “Look, are you really telling me that I somehow managed to Create a new lifeform entirely against Her Express Commands? Because that’s not really...”

“And you’ve never gone against Her wishes before, _obviously_ ,” he countered sharply.

Crowley recoiled and looked hurt.

Aziraphale frowned again, refilled the Demon's abandoned wineglass and offered it to him with downcast eyes in tacit apology.

Crowley sat where he was for a second or two before reaching forward and accepting the glass. “Look, can God create a bowl of Cornflakes larger than God can eat?” he demanded, slightly desperately.

“I beg your pardon?”

Crowley slugged back half the wine before putting the glass down in the punt and daring it to fall over. The glass teetered for a moment before making a better life choice and remaining upright. The Demon waved one of his hands, mindful to keep the other one curled around the duckling. “It’s like the Ontological Argument, isn’t it? Humans come up with thisss rubbisssh but we know it’sss a bag of wank!”

_“Crowley!”_

He turned his head to the side. “Sorry,” he muttered. Then, contrition done, he followed with, “All I mean is, it’s different for us and them. They can guess, believe, _choose_ ,” he added quietly. “We _know_ , well, mostly. Unknowable unassailable Almighty - immortal, invisible, all wise and all that. _Ineffable…_ Why did they get Free Will? Why didn’t we? All we got was a job description.” He blinked several times and looked away. “They get choice and forgiveness. No one dumps _them_ in burning sulphur,” he whispered bitterly to the Cam, barely on the edge of hearing. A moment later he looked at the other inhabitant of the punt and cringed; there are some things not to be said. “Sorry,” he muttered again before standing, realising there was no exit he could take, sitting awkwardly back down, and settling his gaze on the duckling as the safest place to look.

Aziraphale made a hum of consideration. “I never was a fan of the Ontological Argument myself; I thought Descartes was overly smug and frankly could have done better. That’s the trouble with these academic types, you know, they can become so terribly lazy... Don’t forget your wine, dear boy,” he prompted. “The question about the cornflakes is much more imaginative… And you’re right: I do believe it was a lake of molten glass that adulterers were pushed into.”

Crowley almost choked on his wine. “There’s no lake of molten glass in Hell. Rather wish there was; the views would be fantastic, very... palatial. Bucolic!” he corrected before the Angel had a chance to, sounding a little more like himself. “Might warm the place up a bit - it’s always so damp and drafty.” He gave a little shiver of remembrance which awoke the snoozing duckling who wriggled and pecked him until Crowley put it down beside the peas. It attacked them with abandon, making muted but unmistakable guzzling noises as it did so.

Aziraphale stopped to watch the small creature taking pleasure in the simplest of Her gifts; he topped up both their glasses. “The point that I am trying to make, my dear, is not that you have breached any express Commands or Commandments but almost exactly the opposite.”

The blank obsidian of Crowley’s lenses stared at him in what could have been hostility, confusion, or both. 

“With genuine respect, as well as a certain terror at the way you fling Miracles around for such urgent necessities as avoiding the washing-up…”

_“Who wants to do the washing up?”_

“...I know that avian production is, without at least Her tacit consent, beyond your powers. Therefore, this rather adorable creature likely existed before the unexpected wineglass-river interface and must have been, shall we say, Transferred here from somewhere else.”

Crowley raised a single sarcastic eyebrow at the Angel’s adoption of the word after he’d termed it ‘weasley’ before. Apparently a capital letter made all the difference.

“I am fascinated that, at that moment, your apparent wish was strong enough to summon something so cute. I am almost afraid that the next time we might have an eruption of Putti and I foresee myself chasing them around town with giant butterfly nets and a pack of trained winged skulls on those extending dog leads beloved of the sort of people who keep overly enthusiastic, small, yappy terriers.”

The Demon stilled; because whilst the Angel liked to rag and tell him how wrong he was, liked to argue and be an Aetherial pain in the arse, he had never, ever, not even once, said something quite like that. Summoning? Ducks? _Cute?!_ And whilst his instinct was to snarl back that he would never manifest anything as nauseating as Putti, he can’t quite find the Will - a mortifying thought in itself.

Aziraphale sipped his wine and leaned back. “So, this leads onto a question that has been quietly roiling in the back of my head for a while ever since you exerted yourself in all manners of means to save the world...”

Crowley’s head whipped towards him with an expression of wide-eyed something that his sunglasses did their best to hide and failed utterly; they might as well have tried to mask a terrified atomic sunrise for all the citrine edged by amber that burst widely behind and was reflected darkly within their lenses.

Rather carefully directing his gaze upwards and finding excessive fascination in a passing cloud (that wasn’t certain to feel Blessed or Cursed by the scrutiny,) the Angel asked with a deliberately casual tone, “What do you want? You know, what would make you happy?”

Crowley’s throat constricted and he forgot how to breathe. (Technically he didn’t need to of course, but he’d finally got into the regular habit of it on a chill November morning in Norwich in 1572; and, like smoking, it could be one hell of a thing to quit.) 

What did he want? What did he _want?_ Things he could not ask for - things he couldn’t have. Things he patently didn’t deserve. Asking for the Arrangement had taken millennia, and even then… ‘I don’t even like you!’ Aziraphale had said. And it had taken every fibre of spite and hope in his soul to hiss back, ‘You _do!’_ He didn’t know any more if he had the strength to even contemplate the question. He downed his wine, dropping his glass to roll across the boards. He put down the sleeping water fowl so he had both arms free to curl in upon himself. The duckling, evicted from its nesting place started to wake up again. The punt cringed lower in the water and began to veer off-course as the Demon's mood darkened, the quant longing to slip away into the river. “Never was very good at being what anyone wanted.”

“Crowley?”

It was like one of those Russian faerytales, he thought miserably. Not the new ones about marching to Moscow or cherry blossoms or even the Devil and his Cat. One of the old ones, the really old ones, about the princess - or was it the sorcerer? - bound in bands of iron. And a heart hidden somehow in a wolf in a goat in a duck in an egg… It had been an age since he’d been told the tale and the details were hazy; he couldn’t tell whether his heart was an egg about to break or was held in bands of iron that were warping and tearing under pressure. All he knew was it was a feeling he’d kept at bay for centuries - forever - and now it had caught up with him. And he was desperate for it to stop.

 _Smite me,_ he thought morosely, _even you – yes, you with the beak, go on..._ because a duckling wasn’t going to save him now even if it did somehow hold his heart to ransom. 

He let out a huff of breath that definitely wasn’t a sigh, and then pulled first his wings and the rest of his Occult Being into the world. A pleather of raven-dark feathers and a fire-wreathed serpentine body, crowned with the blazing crescent of his shattered halo. The air shimmered immediately around him, hiding him from all sight save for one Angel and one russet-hued duckling. 

_‘What do you want?’_ his angel had asked. _‘What would make you happy?’_

 _Firmament and fuck,_ he thought in anguish. _Can you really Fall twice?_ There was a noise, like iron buckling under pressure but it could just have been the grinding of his teeth. “Jussst… just you,” he admitted in a hoarse, hissed whisper. “That’s all…”

The duckling peeped and stabbed at any piece of the Demon’s True Form it could reach like some river-born Jean d’Arc. It wasn’t certain whether it wished to preen his wings or took exception to his scales – both perhaps. Crowley spat at it as only a serpent could, and then repenting his own spite, used a wing to scoop it up and deposit it on what would probably be his shoulder - if Occult Demonic Entities in the form of giant six-winged snakes actually _had_ shoulders… The duckling accepted both the position and the apology by trying to nest in Crowley’s feathers.

Aziraphale watched, entranced, as Eden’s morose Serpent (somewhere between confused and willing enough) allowed the duckling to preen and harass him if for no other reason than he didn’t seem to know what to do about it.

A moment later Crowley sagged, his wings furling away, feathers sinking inwards, his halo burning down until it became the red of his belly. His golden eyes could barely meet the Angel’s as his dark coils slumped in curls across the wood of the punt, one confused and vocal yet diminutive waterfowl still standing defiantly on his scales. “I want to be with you.” His sunglasses had fallen off when he shifted, but he had yet to lift his gaze from the waters of the Cam. “Think that’s all I ever wanted, really… What - what do you want?” A snake doesn’t have eyelids, but Crowley was much more than just a snake. He closed his amber eyes, wondering what he could ask Aziraphale for and knowing in the pit of his stomach that he’d mess it up. Questions had always been his forte and his downfall - and he was doing it again, wasn’t he? Fucking it up. Why could he never keep his smart bloody mouth shut? Didn’t even have to be his question - his blasted angel had asked a question and he’d fallen all to scales and made it worse... Oh Sod and Satan, he had to say _something_ , the quiet was unbearable. “I - it - it doesn't matter; wasn’t like we ever had a plethora of choicesss,” he hissed tiredly before rearing up and regaining limbs. He deposited the furious duckling carefully on the punt, shook his head and cuffed his hand briskly against his eyes before walking off the rear end of the craft, too emotionally volatile to pay the least bit of attention to the fact that according to physics, water was supposed to have a lower density to wood. The Cam didn’t fancy correcting him anyhow. However, one very small and very determined duckling, against all Hellish Interventions, did its best to follow.

"Oh, my dear boy," the Angel regarded his companion, an unusually unfathomable expression on his face as the duckling ignored the peas he tried to offer and resolutely followed the Demon back into the Cam.

Crowley, all skinny six-feet-something of him, stood upon the waters of the river, shoulders hunched with the memory of wings as the punt continued to drift lazily downstream.

The Angel’s first instinct had been to be sharp: wily foolish and bothersome Serpent, always slithering into trouble. But Eden’s Serpent wasn’t quite as wily as all that, at least not when against someone who’d known him for six millennia. He didn't think a combative tone would be of use. “Crowley? Oh, Crowley _do_ come back,” the Angel offered. “You left your wine - and we haven’t resolved the question of the duck…”

He looked round sharply and his eyes, unmasked, were like sunshine and lava. “You can keep the duck,” he said, and really he had meant it to be angry but it just sounded defeated. “I - I shouldn’t be here.” He looked away for a moment, masking something his eyes couldn’t. “Angels, feathers, ducks, right?” he muttered uncertainly again. A queasy look at the right bank. “Your thing angel,” he said, barely above hearing. He started to trudge, wending his way back down the Cam but - to add insult to injury - it felt like tar against his boots. He’d been in Hell, this wasn’t Hellfire slag and slurry, but still, the clear waters of the Cam resisted him. His boots weren’t doing so well; they weren't boiling or burning or melting, they were just waterlogged, yet that seemed to be more than enough. He stopped to glare at them, emotions strung high and unhappy. _“What the fuck...?”_

“Crowley!” was the last thing he heard, possibly accompanied by a peep, before he went under.

Of a sudden in a panic, Aziraphale stood up in the boat. "No! No, no, no, this was not supposed to happen." As he swayed in the punt, he became aware of the eyes of a number of spectators whose stunned gazes and jaws agape indicated that they had been made all too aware of the non-secular activities occurring on the river. After a quick glance upwards, he cleared his throat. "Well, everyone, I hope that you have enjoyed the magic show by the Amazing Stupendo and … 'pon my socks, is that a lesser-spotted Snorcklewacker?" It was merely the teeniest compulsion, he told himself, and only in a good cause to distract the viewers whilst he persuaded (because the word ‘Miracled’ had so many complicated connotations) the Cam to yield up what was now a thoroughly bedraggled Crowley.

Somehow he hauled the non-cooperative Demon onto the punt and stripped off his friend's sodden jacket, replacing it with his own, preternaturally warm and comforting frock coat. Leaning over him, he gently stroked the Demon on the cheek. "My dear, dear boy, such a public exhibition. You do know that it is actually possible to say some things without making a full-blown production of the whole affair."

Crowley’s cheek burnt like a brand; he shivered and coughed out the mouthful or two of the Cam that had managed to invade his lungs, feeling confused and thoroughly wretched. For one so adept at asking questions, Eden’s Serpent could be surprisingly inept at answering them, especially when asked by his angel. _Especially_ when it was a question he’d both longed for and dreaded for six thousand years.

Small, urgent, and very cross noises came to his attention, despite the remnants of water lodged in his ears. He sat up in a wobbly manner and flomped awkwardly over the side of the punt he judged the sounds to be coming from, trailing a hand in the water and encouraging the Cam to bring his catch to him. (The Cam, which by this point was about as in awe and terror as any collection of water molecules had ever managed to be, obliged.) One duckling, russet hued and now with significantly soggier down, paddled and was channelled with the river’s help into the Demon’s open palm to be scooped up once more into the punt. Crowley coughed again and hunched uncertainly, his hair dripping in his eyes, looking like he dearly wished to slump against the side of the craft but having just enough sense to realise that was impossible without turning serpentine again or landing him half in the Cam for a second time. 

The duckling surveyed its changed location, fixated on Crowley, glared at him, centred its stance and said a lot of things very loudly in Duck that the Demon didn’t bother to translate. Instead he offered his palm again. The duckling pecked at it sulkily before climbing upon it and allowing itself to be brought towards the damp of Crowley’s shirt and the warmth of the Angel’s frock coat that was draped around his shoulders. In a move that in Crowley’s opinion took petty to a whole new level, it pecked at both his fingers and his shirt buttons, demanding to be groomed and have the damp smoothed from its feathers.

The Demon sighed, tried to dry his hand on his still sopping-wet trousers, gave up, and used his narrow fingers to preen the duckling’s down, encouraging it to fluff and dry itself with a meagre Demonic Intervention. Crowley wasn’t certain whether he did this to stop the little monster from pecking him and shouting in Duck, or whether he was avoiding facing up to what the Angel had said, and how it had felt when he’d brushed his cheek. He was reluctantly aware that he couldn’t avoid the current situation by fussing over a duckling forever. “Wasn’t a production or an exhibition,” he huffed quietly when the duckling was asleep once more. “Was just how I felt.”

“You felt like walking into the river?” the Angel needled gently.

“No! Not like…” he resisted the temptation to wave his arms, focusing on the sleeping waterfowl instead. “I just… just felt a lot. You’re an Angel, still got the whole serenity thing going on, yeah?” he commented hopelessly. “You can deal with your feelings... _gracefully_.” His tone was heavily laced with something jagged but it wasn’t scorn. His hair was still dripping across his forehead but he refused to cuff it away from his eyes as it was the only mask he had at his disposal. He shivered again and used his free hand to settle the frock coat more closely around his skinny shoulders. “Besides,” he said very quietly, spine curled over the duckling so he didn’t have to look at anything else, “you never answered my question.” Lambent eyes dared to flick briefly up from beneath sodden hair. “I answered yours,” he offered softly.

Aziraphale gazed fondly at Crowley. “What do I want? I suspect from the urgency you put into the query, to say nothing of the dramatic emulation of Esther Williams at her finest, that you are not seeking an answer along the lines of World Peace and Harmony Amongst Mankind because, well, that is more of a _corporate_ ambition...”

“You talk but you never say what you really mean,” Crowley complained. “Weasel words - I didn’t invent them. You - you are the - the...” his passion drained and he shivered again. “You… you are the _king_ of words,” he said quietly, defeated. “Deflecting. Hiding. Sshielding maybe, I don’t know. I jussst, I - I...” by this point Crowley was rocking gently, duckling still held close to his chest. His head was low and his free hand brushed against his eyes; he felt too much and it wasn’t fair - it wasn’t fair at all: Demons weren’t meant to have blessed _feelings_.

Two well-manicured and strong hands rested firmly on his upper arms, stilling him and reducing his fretting to the occasional twitch. “Crowley… my dear, we are on Our Side. And I’m sorry if I ever left you to doubt it….” With infinite care he brushed his fingers against the Demon’s forehead to move away the now blood-red wet locks. The Demon in his coat and in his arms shuddered and went unnaturally still. Aziraphale frowned and continued to tidy Crowley’s hair away from his face. It wasn’t a task that should have taken long, but he drew it out.

Crowley didn’t entirely remember what had happened after he’d tried to walk away across the Cam. He’d had vague thoughts of heading into town and one of the many student bars he knew to be there and drinking until the world went away, but instead… instead… well something had fucked up - or he had fucked up - same difference in the end. And now he was half warm and half shivering and there was some sort of living fluff on his chest and… and… oh fuck. This had to be a hallucination. How was he braced by and leaning up against his angel? How could that be happening? His corporation twitched in terror and those strong, gentle hands squeezed through the frock coat against his shoulders again. 

“Really, dear boy,” he tutted. “You don't look after yourself in the least. But you do not have to. I have you. You’re alright.”

Crowley, as far as Crowley was concerned, looked after himself very well. He dressed with elan and his hair, whatever the style, was _fantastic_. He filed his reports on time, he didn’t display weakness in front of other Demons, and he took credit for a lot of Humanity’s atrocity. Whilst this might make him want to get drunk for two weeks straight or quietly vomit in a corner, that was by the by. He survived and Hell left him alone.

Fingers were carding through his hair and he couldn’t understand whether he was too cold or too hot. He shuddered, seeking the touch that chilled and burned both at once. The golden blue of the sky turned to static and he didn’t care. Just let – please Someone - just let that touch come again... He was leant up against someone, in their lap really, and the warmth was bliss. And in his hand close to his chest was something that he didn’t understand but would protect anyway, because that’s what Angels were made to do... He twitched violently because that thought had no business being in his head; he hadn’t been an Angel in a very long time didn’t give a damn about being one now and… His ongoing metal meltdown was only stilled by another hand placed firmly on his. 

“Crowley… Dear boy…” Eyes of blue-green gazed down at him with a concerned look that he couldn’t quite focus on. “You’re alright… Honestly, you’ll upset our guest.” The Angel continued to look at the Demon; the Demon looked vaguely at something beyond mortal sight. Aziraphale bit his lip and huffed a sigh before straightening his shoulders and Crowley’s position against him. “When was the last time you opened your wings?”

The question came from far away and took several seconds to permeate his brain. “...Today,” he croaked.

“Before that.”

“....Armageddon.”

“When did you last open them in hope - or joy?”

Crowley didn’t like this line of questioning, but he was sopping wet, bundled in a coat that was not his own with a duckling clasped to his chest whilst he in turn was being held by his angel. He had a sneaking suspicion that Aziraphale, bastard that he was, knew just how uncomfortable Crowley’s eyes and wings made him. Irises that had corrupted to something animalistic and base; wings that had burnt black. A permanent reminder – as if it was needed – that he was Fallen. Crowley took very good care of his wings in the same way he maintained his flat: impersonal and purely for show. When had he opened his wings for the joy of it – ha! – for the Hell of it? Crowley’s eyes which had been butter yellow with a panic that bordered delirium, widened and clarified into amber. “Eden,” he whispered.

“Oh,” Aziraphale echoed, quiet as a breath. He held him tighter, his arms wrapped across shoulders and ribs, mindful of the duckling, trying to infuse his companionship, his love, into the ridiculous, miraculous and lanky Demon in his arms. “Come come,” he encouraged. “I have you; and your wings are beautiful, as lovely as a clear night sky, my dear. Why not let them enjoy the sunshine?”

Whilst all of Crowley brain was telling him to do nothing of the sort, his wings, every single feather of them, wanted to bask in the Angel’s praise, reach up and brush against his skin. _You stupid touch-starved bastard,_ he tried to tell himself but somehow that made it worse.

“Crowley?”

‘Ha, sorry, just tired is all,’ is what he wanted to say in a tone that made it clear everything was perfectly _totally_ fine - why wouldn’t it be?

Because that was what he always did, bless it. He circled in a tireless watch, a never-ending loop, accessing, double guessing, never admitting anything because Hell might be listening. He'd spent almost his entire existence as one big, spring-loaded puzzle box of secrets. Only now that Armageddon had come and passed with surprisingly few consequences, he didn’t have to anymore. But old habits were hard to kick; he was supine against his angel in a very stupid boat and instead of enjoying a picnic, what had he done? Only bloody gone Occult and Other Worldly! And why? All because of a bloody baby duck. He was so damn paranoid, he’d freaked out over a duck. Oh, and a question - the Question - the one that opened the puzzle box, the one that must never be answered, never be voiced... Right, yep, that was why he’d tried to walk off across the Cam. Well that was embarrassing and something he’d never live down (which for an Eternal Being was not a happy thought). For the love of Someone, could this twined humiliation and mortification just end already?

His angel’s fingers were still digging into his shoulders and even that was suddenly too much: he cried out and lurched forward violently, his wings manifesting with a swish and snap of displaced air: a vast span of feathers, dark as the void beyond the stars, dusted with the scintillating memory of their light. He tried to get to his feet again but it was difficult; like someone missing a limb who tried to dance for the first time he was off kilter and unbalanced. He curled over himself, still cradling the duckling, the Angel’s coat now rucked up awkwardly on his shoulders, bunched between his wings. He started muttering how it was fine - it was _fine_ \- wanting to give them both the smallest of meaningless comforts he could manage and hoping neither would shout at him.

There was another snap of air which Crowley couldn’t quite believe. But craning his head over his shoulder he saw it was true: Aziraphale had his wings out too. Fluffier than the Demon would have thought, but just as bright and pearlescent as he remembered. He twisted his neck back at an almost unnatural angle, brows arched and eyes round with surprise.

The Angel was smiling, an expression as warm as sunshine. “Crowley, my dearest. You asked what do I want? I want this. I want what you want. I want the future, together… for us.”

“…Us?”

“Yes.” Gracefully, for he was arguably a being comprised of Grace after all, Aziraphale knelt, then raised himself on his knees so could lean over to kiss the Demon on the forehead. He couldn’t help a small private smile of satisfaction as he noted Crowley’s irises flare wide and golden and a slight blush tinge his cheeks; his wings too curled forward and he fell bonelessly back against the Angel, who caught his easily and knelt once more so the Demon was cradled against his chest and across his thighs. “Now,” he reached up a hand to trace soft fingers across the alula and primary coverts of Crowley’s right wing, all the way down as far as he could reach, almost to the flights.

Crowley shivered and bit the inside of his mouth, fearful lest he speak and mess things up.

Another long stroke from the outer curve of his wing downwards. “Whilst I would usually suggest at this moment that we take a sojourn skywards, I fear out companion would not be able to keep up…”

“Wha...?” Crowley croaked, desperately trying to get his brain to work and failing spectacularly.

“We can’t fly right now, the duckling couldn't possibly keep up.”

“Nngh… yeah.” Without his permission his right wing twitched gently and shuddered towards where it hoped Aziraphale’s hand might be.

The Angel sighed good-naturedly and ran his palm against the feathers a third time. “It would seem to me that we ought to conduct ourselves in repose and enjoy what we have. There is, after all, still half a bottle of Chateau d'Yquem to finish off…” The Angel was unsurprised to see that due to Crowley’s stern expectations of them, the wine bottle and both glasses (all full, as they wouldn't dare otherwise,) had just arranged themselves within easy reach. He passed one of the glasses to Crowley, making certain his companion wasn’t in danger of dropping it due to wings, stress, or the duckling he still clasped in his other hand. “There we are dear boy,” he offered with satisfaction.

“Is… is this alright?” Crowley asked, because they were on the Cam and their wings were out, and there was a duck, and it would make more sense that he was delirious right now than he was in his angel’s lap drinking wine in a stupid punt…

Aziraphale reached forward to stroke his knuckles tenderly across Crowley’s cheek and then to press against the midnight of his wings. “Absolutely tickerty-boo,” he promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DT and I wrote this to amuse one another whilst insomniac, which may or may not explain the high level of drama and shenanigans. The story was originally supposed to be a perfectly normal boat ride whilst debating philosophy and divinity in the Good Omens Universe. Then I turned a wineglass into a duckling and, well... 
> 
> Thank you for reading =)
> 
> Please kudos and comment if you enjoyed!


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